Hey!
I was wondering, do you guys think it indicates overproofing or something in that direction if the bubbles on the top of the dough start bursting during bulk fermentation?
Could they be bursting because of a lack of dough strength or gluten development? For me it can happen before the dough has risen 50 percent.
Does your dough have a high proportion of whole grain flour?
Yes!
About 50/50 most often
Hmm, that’s enough gluten-strong flour that you shouldn’t have a bunch of popped holes at 50% expansion. Two other possibilities: your dough is very high hydration or you’re doing so much gluten development and de-gassing that your 50% expanded dough is actually much farther along in terms of fermentation. An aliquot jar might help you determine that. Here’s an example of how much the same dough expanded in a bowl vs the straight-walled jar. That’s a whole grain dough and I stopped the first rise at that point.
Hmm I see, well my current is some version of the “slow lazy sourdough” method. However I do most of my gluten development in the beginning of the bulk, and then put the dough in a straight sided container. So I don’t think my issue is that I am degassing in, but there might be something going on with the straight sided vessel. It is like a glass bowl with straight sides but the dough needs to sort of relax before it fills the sides of it, so it might expand more than I think when it starts rising.
I have not had good luck with the aliqout jars, maybe i should give it a try again.
When you put dough in straight sided vessels, what is your method? Do you sort of push it down to fill it?
If you are doing the slow lazy sourdough method, maybe we should have @homebreadbaker weigh in on whether his dough gets popped bubbles too. Perhaps it’s simply a matter of how long the bulk fermentation is with this method.
I should have asked initially: are you happy with how your bread comes out? Do you have any photos? That might help diagnose whether you are overproofing.
Errrr, I don’t ever see any bubbles on top of my dough during bulk proofing. Maybe I’m doing something wrong.
I forgot to address your question of getting the dough in the bucket to be flat. I sometimes dampen my knuckles and squish it down. Other times, I just make a guess of how the dough might further flatten over time.
Here’s today’s knuckle squished-down dough:
Here is my latest, I would say I am usually happy and don’t get the failures now that I did in the beginning of trying this method (actually in the beginning they were fine but something went out of control in the warm summer)
However does not this look a little bit underproofed?
I still want to improve it so i consitently get good results. I love the taste of the long slow fermentation (and the lazy sourdough starter method)
I should say, the texture was somewhat on the wet and chewy side. Maybe I underbaked it?
Anyway this dough had some bursting bubbles (one or two) and felt really slack when I shaped it.
Alright thanks, and you just leave it there then with no gluten development until you shape it?
I doubt that lol 
your breads look awesome!
But anyway good to know. I want to try this with completely wholegrain and freshly milled flour. Will probably order the mockmill 100 soon.
I agree that the bread looks a little underproofed, mostly because of that diamond shape of the cross section. The crumb is fine imo, especially if your dough was on the dryer side.
You might take a look at this other current forum thread that is also talking about fermentation, under and over.
I just posted in that thread a video of the same dough as above but during some of the gluten development – I didn’t leave it alone in the bucket this time, but sometimes I do.
Do you have a probe thermometer? Getting the internal bread temp over 205F plus hearing a hollow sound when you knock on the bottom of the bread are the rules of thumb.
Here’s the “end of the bulk fermentation” photo of the dough in the earlier pic
And here are the pre-shaped pizza doughs going nuts in my refrigerator…I will be moving them to my basement colder refrigerator for another 24 hrs.
Wow those pizzas look wild, sourdough?
Thanks for all this, it is helpful to see everything.
Dough was at 75 percent hydration, though quite a big proportion of einkorn which I find makes a somewhat more slack dough and sticky.
But if it was underproofed, is it not weird with the bursting bubbles?
In general when I leave the dough for long enough in bulk fermentation it gets a bit on the slack side.
Recently I finished the bulk fermentation and then put the dough straight in to the fridge, and later shaped it cold. Found that the dough was easier to handle then.
I do have a thermometer, but am a bit lazy with.using it and usually go by look of the crust, maybe I should use it next time. To be sure
Einkorn - definitely slack and not thirsty! With a large amount of einkorn, you have to kinda rewrite your book of expectations. I think your bread looks great and possibly fermented to the right degree if it’s mostly einkorn.
Here are some recipes with varying amounts of einkorn flour
Einkorn is also high in enzymatic activity, so it may not be the best choice for the slow lazy method. The enzymatic activity of a flour is activated when it gets wet. Some flours like rye and einkorn are extra active, so if they are left to sit long enough, they can become gluten-eating or proteolytic.
Here’s a blog post about working with these lower gluten wheats and how to test their strength and degredation rate.
Yes! You are like Sherlock holmes of sourdough lol, this would explain my issues I have been having!
Looking forward to try some recipes once I get my mockmill. Btw do you know of a good list or similar of grains with high enzymatic activity?
Glad to help 
Off the top of my head, rye and einkorn that are known for being more enzymatically active. Possibly red fife a bit too, though it has far stronger gluten to begin with than rye and einkorn.
This article describes all the wheat we carry at Breadtopia:
And the slurry test in the Baking Bread with Low Gluten Wheat link above can be done on any wheat to test its characteristics.
Thanks that is great!
Just baked one loaf with 50 percent emmer, did it the more conventional way with fed and ripe starter. But it took off so much that I could not make it stop growing in the fridge, had to stick it in the freezer for awhile to make it chill out but it still overproofed a bit.
But the taste and texture was real nice:)
The bread looks great! Summertime fermentation can be wild. Refrigerating a dough that is 78F vs one that’s a chilly 67F makes for different outcomes for sure.
